what is the smallest particle that is known to science?

Answer 1

the photon "light" is the smallest particle

Answer 2

If you want to know how big the particles are you have to start putting boundaries on how the measurements are going to be made.

However, if you start at the atom and work downwards you've got protons and neutrons. These are comprised of quarks. These are held together by gluons.

The three types of neutrinos are supposedly smaller, travel at near the speed of light and have miniscule mass.

Once you're at that size, there is not very much difference between a particle and a wave. At this scale it's a matter of how you want to measure it. Particles are considered to have most of their effective mass within a particular region of space. Waves are considered in the same fashion. They are differentiated by the way they interact in different experiments.

The smallest proposed 'particle' like object is the string that makes up many of the string theory models. These are many, many magnitudes smaller than the neutrinos and gluons mentioned, about (10 ^ -35) metres.

However, physics theories also talk about dimensions that are 'rolled up' and occupy even smaller dimensions. Some states of string theory say that these particles are only possible in a model of 26 mathematical dimensions.

String theory particles sweep out 2D space but are essentially massless and it is only their interaction through vibration and the subsequent changes in the electric and magnetic properties of space that result from the vibration that cause any particle like behaviour to exist at all.

I think these would occupy a high place in the list of tiny particles.

Answer 3

Depending on whether you accept string theory or not, strings are not only the smallest particle known but the smallest particle possible. They can be on the scale of the planck length, 10^(-18)cm.

Some suggest electrons and quarks, as fundamental particles, are actually points with size 0, but in string theory they are made of strings.

Answer 4

Unless I've fallen behind again, you're asking about quarks. There are 2 no 3 no 6 ... 6 of them. They combine in various ways to produce the particles you've heard more about, like proton or electron.

This Wikipedia article is pretty technical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark

Here's the WP article on "particle physics"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physics

And here's the list of known particles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles

There are LOTS, so you'll want to notice that they're generally arranged into groups.

On the quantum mechanical level, the word "particle" is sort of fuzzy, because under some conditions that "stuff" they're made of acts more like a wave than a particle.

If that sounds mysterious, that's because it is!

Answer 5

actuly we can not talk about haw big is a partical. Partical have no lenght or wid. They have only influentional zones. We know that fotons the partical that cary the cuantum energy. IT behaves like an real partical( that have mas ) and also like a wawe. Becouse of the ucertanly principal we know that there exist a conection betven particals and wavs so we can not talk about them separately if we do not know what will we going to do with it. So a partical with a biger inpuls will be a partical that you can mesuer eseay. It is all in the distribution function. This gives the lenght and wid of the particals. Theyr distribution as far as the quantic mecanics cunserns is infinit. But there is a limit in wich the distribution function can be considere 0, so that must be what are you loking for.

Answer 6

"Quarks are believed to be one of the basic building blocks of matter. Quarks were first discovered in experiments done at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Three families of quarks are known to exist. Each family contains two quarks. The first family consists of Up and Down quarks, the quarks that join together to form protons and neutrons. The second family consists of Strange and Charm quarks and only exist at high energies. The third family consists of Top and Bottom quarks and only exist at very high energies. The Top quark was finally discovered in 1995 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory."
--http://education.jlab.org/glossary/quark.html

Answer 7

Larks. Larks, often difficult to detect (they hide very well) cost mega $ to find, study & document. Still a secret at the University level
(though more apparent in Ivy League) are said to be 1,000 xs smaller than quarks!

Magnetically opposed to quarks, Larks often lurk (free lurk a new radical rule) and are often invisible (hence new cloaking tech.) Said to be the smallest nanobit, our govt is reputed to have spent over 1 trillion $ on Lark technology.

Answer 8

Electron!

Answer 9

dear friend
Today the technology has entered into Nano.
Well if we the humans are in nano size then our normal persons thumb ,1 crore persons of nano size can stand in chain holding hand to hand.
thats it.

Have gr8 day

Raj

Answer 10

I doubt between a very fast neutrino and a very fast quark.
(Very fast because of relativistic contraction)

Th